NEW YORK: World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) chairman Vince McMahon has made a move to further inject more investment in his company Alpha Entertainment, which owns the XFL, the professional American football league that is bring set up to rival the NFL, Bleacher Report reports.
As per WWE’s official filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, McMahon sold 3,204,427 shares of his stock in the wrestling promotion worth approximately $270 million. The filing noted: “The shares sold by Mr. McMahon represent approximately 4.1 percent of the Company’s total outstanding shares of Class A and Class B common stock. After the sale, Mr. McMahon beneficially owns 28,682,94 shares of the Company’s Class B common stock, which represents approximately 80.1 percent of the Company’s total voting power and approximately 36.8 percent of the Company’s total outstanding shares of common stock.”
McMahon’s plans to relaunch the XFL in February 2020 will cost him around $500 million according to an ESPN report of June 2018. He is willing to invest this amount after the property’s failure initially in 2001, which cost the WWE and media partners NBC $70 million.
The development also indicates that a potential change of ownership of the WWE is on the cards, with this being the biggest sale amount by any chairman of the sporting property so far.
This is not the first instance of McMahon selling off his WWE shares. He previously shed 3.34 million shares, at an approximate value of $100 million in December 2017. In November 2018, McMahon let go of 306,000 shares to earn more than $23 million.
Forbes estimates the 73-year-old as having a net worth of $3.3 billion, making him one of the richest sports administrators in the world.
